Part 3The Allergen List

The dinner table at my childhood home was a battlefield divided by an invisible line.

On my parents' and brother’s side: steaming roast beef, buttery crab legs, rich stews. The smell alone was intoxicating.

On my side: a plate of boiled cabbage and a bowl of plain white rice. No oil, just a pinch of salt. A soggy green pile.

My brother Tyler would sit across from me, grease on his chin, laughing with malicious glee. "Riley, you really have no luck. Look at you, eating grass like a rabbit."

He would deliberately wave a greasy rib under my nose, watching me flinch, enjoying my longing and my fear.

My mom would place the last piece of steak on Tyler’s plate, never even glancing at me, muttering the mantra I heard every day: "Riley can't eat that. She'll die. Her allergies are fatal."

Those words were my shackles.

In school, while other kids bought hot lunches—pizza, tacos, nuggets—I sat in the corner with my cold Tupperware of boiled greens. I ate quickly, terrified someone would ask, "Riley, why do you only eat that?"

Malnutrition made me small and frail. My hair was brittle, my skin pale. In gym class, I couldn't finish a mile run without nearly fainting. The teachers were concerned, but my parents just shrugged. "She has a weak constitution. Born that way."

When I was seven, I watched Tyler eat a hard-boiled egg. It looked so soft, so perfect. When Mom went to the kitchen, I snatched a tiny piece of the white and popped it in my mouth.

It was delicious. But before I could swallow, a hand clamped onto my jaw.

Mom screamed, her face twisted in rage. "What did you eat?!"

She dragged me to the bathroom, forced my mouth open, and poured salt water down my throat until I choked. She shoved her fingers down my gullet. "Spit it out! Do you want to die?!"

I vomited until there was nothing left but bile. The humiliation and pain of that day branded a physiological fear into my brain. My body learned to reject those foods out of terror.

But tonight? Tonight I ate everything. And I was fine.

I lay on the cold floor, sobbing until my body convulsed.

Twenty-seven years. I had been a donkey blindfolded and forced to grind the mill, stripped of the simple joy of food, labeled "sickly" to cover up their cruelty.